Looking For Homes With Solar Panels
Hey all!! We are considering a move here this year and are heavily contemplating going super energy efficient with our new purchase. My husband is a little extreme with his wants and is thinking we go off-grid as much as possible. I think if we didn’t have the kids I would be more open to that, but I’m not home schooling them, and I’m not sending them to some little dump school in the sticks just because we want to breathe cleaner air. The air in Phoenix is nasty, and if you ever make it up to Greer you know that there are parts of Arizona that would be heavenly to live in. Imagine a cabin off of a creek, something the kids could swim in during the summer, and the dogs could splash in year round. These properties exist up in Greer, but it’s 6 hours from Phoenix and our lives revolve around Phoenix. The kids have grown up here, and have all their friends here and I wouldn’t want to take them away from that. When I was growing up I was always fearful my parents would move away and I would lose my friends,looking back it’s silly, but at the time it was a legit concern. So here we stand, looking to make a move this year and get a little deeper where the traffic isn’t as bad an the air is a little better. We have ruled out Payson and Pine, still small enough towns where I think the kids would end up in more trouble than they do in Phoenix. At least here they are busy with school activities and the city has enough after school programs that we are always on the move. What about Ahwatukee? I have driven through there on occasion and realize that the homes are a little pricer than the one we currently live in but we have the equity to counter the expense. We would both like to have a huge back yard and possibly be against a hill side without neighbors. We would like a swimming pool, an area for the dogs to run, three car garage, and enough real estate that the kids all have their own rooms and we are spaced out a bit more than we currently are. On top of all those amenities and property requests, we really want to go solar. Of all states to live in and be solar, Arizona has to be one of the top states in the country for solar electricity. With that being said, it’s surprising that it’s so hard to find a decent property with the specs we want that includes solar panels. I searched the MLS and was surprised to see few homes on the market with solar panels already installed. I realized at that point that most people who purchased and installed solar panels were probably in their forever homes and weren’t selling anytime soon. This would make sense, I believe the average return on solar panels is like 10 years. Meaning to truly get the savings you are after, you need to be in it for the long run and 10 years is about the lifetime where you really begin to see the savings add up. This is great news for us, our next home will be our forever home and we need a solar realtor to with help us find that house, or help us find a house the is well suited to add solar panels on and make into an energy efficient property.
Luckily for me and my husband I’m pretty handy on this internet thing and can navigate pretty efficiently. The MLS was a dead end for me, I just couldn’t find many homes for sale with solar panels. I decided to reach out to a solar broker hoping that they might either sell houses with solar panels, or know of some homes for sale with solar panels that were not on the MLS. I found a solar real estate broker here in Phoenix named Greg at http://www.solarhomespecialist.com/ and was blown away by the information he was able to provide me for not only locating homes for sale with solar, but also knew how we could convert a home into solar after our purchase. I liked this idea because I have been finding homes left and right without solar panels that fit our needs, knowing we can go in real quick and equip the home with solar panels, and a solar hot water heater was music to my ears. Heading into the summer months, we will continue our hunt for solar real estate, but also keep on the look out for properties without solar. Here we go, the search continues. I will keep you guys updated as we make progress on our hunt for a home. If any of you know a solar real estate specialist, or know of a home for sale with solar panels just leave a comment and a link to the property. I would be extremely grateful. Enjoy the night everyone, bye!
Currently we have made a few wallets and partners with a friend here in Phoenix at Hotchkiss Leather on the design of a 


She was in a coma after taking a gun shot to the brain. In some meraculous fashion, she has recovered beyond expectations. She will need years of rehab and they don’t know if she will ever recover many cognitive functions. Not to get side tracked by another story, but these things just seem to hit too close to home. As a mom with a zoo of kids and a family I love, I can’t imagine facing situations like either of these. So when my coworker told me about her daughter I burst into tears and felt so sad in my heart for her. I could not imagine dealing with this or even watching my little girl deal with this. But I would have to be strong like any mother would and see to it that we cured the disease and recover to the best of our capabilities. You don’t think about the little everyday things that you can do to help these people, from
My girlfriends husband was recently notified that he will be transferred to Oklahoma for work in the coming months. They gave them enough time to pack and prepare, but I don’t think anyone is ever really prepared to just pick up and move. Personally, I love Arizona and would have no interest in moving to Oklahoma, but when the opportunities knock sometimes you gotta answer. Apparently, her husband will be getting a substantial raise that will move them up in the good old tax bracket and the cost of living is a little cheaper in the area they have their eyes on. But my question to her was
Most of the junk in the garage was her husbands, the dust collected on the boxes were a great indication that he shouldn’t miss most of it. In two days we had the walls and tabletops cleared off and the garage cleaned out. The attic was his job, so was preparing the yard to sell the home. He was also in charge of all the painting and touch ups that needed to be done before the house hit the market. Other than that, we were ready for a U-Haul whenever they decided it was time to go.
Guess it would be the equivalent of Phoenix and Tempe. Edmond was really nice though, more of a rural family-friendly area where Tempe is more of a college town. We drove around looking for
Quartz is comprised of both silicon and oxygen atoms and is the second most abundant mineral found in the
timepieces due to its ability +to convert electrical voltage from mechanical stress, resulting in a positive electrical charge at one end of the crystal and a negative electrical charge at the other end, a process called piezoelectricity. Quartz crystals have an exact frequency standard, which helps the timepiece maintain its accuracy by regulating the movement. In addition to watches and clocks, quartz crystals are also used in computer microprocessors, radios, cell phones, electronic games, and televisions. Since the 1930’s, quartz crystals have been used for many purposes, and to keep up with the demand, synthetic quartz crystals have been produced.
While quartz may have many specialized uses, it also is a substance used in everyday homes. Quartz is known to withstand pressure and weathering, which makes may be why it has been gaining popularity in recent years as the successor to granite countertops as the choice du jour. Over the past fifty years, 



I didn’t want to blog about this in January because I wasn’t sure what I wanted out of the new year and honestly I still don’t. A happy home, healthy kids, and success in whatever we pursue sounds like enough to make me happy. But all that aside, there is something that would not only make me happier, it would make me healthier and that is weight loss. I got down on seconds over the holiday season and didn’t shy away from anything that was edible through November and December, but now I am truly ready for a change. I have looked into some weight loss programs but an a firm believer that I need a change of lifestyle more than anything. I want this to be a lifelong transformation, not just a few months of eating healthy and exercising and them back to the snack shack for some chips and soda. Arizona is beautiful most of the year and I have no excuse not to be outside in the sun most of the time. I just need a little motivation. My husband is awesome, but we just don’t seem to motivate each other like we used to. We can both just as easily plop down on the couch with a bottle of Pinot and binge watch Game of Thrones, getting out of the house to work out has never been our thing and with all the kids around it’s become even less of an option. 